Soviet landscape painter Sulo Yuntunen 1915-1980
Soviet landscape painter Sulo Yuntunen
Rightly considered the pioneer of the modern Karelian landscape, Sulo Yuntunen managed to look at the nature of Karelia through the eyes of our contemporary, to plastically comprehend it in a new way. According to the artist, it is not enough to admire nature. This will inevitably lead to copying. You will work “under Levitan” or “under Van Gogh.” In order to show life in its own way, one must learn to think.”
Member of the USSR Union of artists (1946)
Throughout his creative life, Yuntunen changed his view of the problems of landscape painting. Thus, at the beginning of the creative path he, by his own admission, he tried to recreate the most beautiful places, selecting good weather for this, and even appropriate lighting. Then, later he realized that the greatness of nature does not need external effects. The main thing for the painter was the embodiment of the mental and psychological portrait of the region.
The direction of Yuntunen’s searches at the turn of the 1950s-1960s corresponded to the general trends in the development of Soviet art of that time. Gradually, in his landscapes, the intonations of another artistic language begin to sound more and more. Meanwhile, the image of his paintings is changing, it becomes capacious and saturated. Nature and man with his work from now on almost always live in the paintings of S. Kh. Yuntunen inseparably.
“If we, the artists, are able to deeply comprehend and feel how and what our country is living, and pass it on to the viewer so that he says: yes, this is my world, I know it and love it! If we give him the opportunity to see the reality wider and more diverse, then we can consider our task to be largely fulfilled”, Yunutnen said.
Sulo Heykkevich Yuntunen September (1, 1915 – November 19, 1980) – Honored Art Worker of the Karelian ASSR (1953),
Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1959),
Laureate of the State Prize of the Karelian ASSR (1969),
People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1970),
People’s Artist of the USSR (1980).
Member of the Union of Artists of the USSR since 1946. Member of art exhibitions since 1941.
Soviet landscape painter Sulo Yuntunen
Source:
Artist and World. Illustrated album. Soviet Artist. Moscow. 1976